ill-treatment of his crew. To support a claim for restitution,
two English ships of war had been sent to the mouth of the
Irrawadi. … Misunderstandings arose on some inexplicable
point of etiquette;" the British commodore seized a royal
yacht which lay in the river; the angry Burmese opened fire on
his ships from their forts; and, "with an unprecedented
economy of time and trouble in the discovery or making of
plausible pretexts, a second war with Burmah was thus begun. A
long catalogue of affronts, wrongs, and injuries, now for the
first time poured in. … The subjects of the 'Golden Foot'
… must make an official apology for their misbehaviour, pay
ten lacs compensation, and receive a permanent Resident at
Rangoon. If these demands were not met within five weeks,
further reparation would be exacted otherwise, and as there
was no fear that they would, preparations were made for an
expedition. … The Governor-General threw himself with
enthusiasm into an undertaking which promised him another
chance of gratifying, as his biographer says, his 'passion for
imperial symmetry.'
{1740}
He resolved 'to take in kingdoms wherever they made a gap in
the red line running round his dominions or broke its internal
continuity.' There was a gap in the ring-fence between Arracan
and Moulmein, which Pegu would fill. The logical inference was
clear, the duty of appropriation obvious. Let us have Pegu.
Ten millions of silver happening just then to lie in the
coffers of Fort William, how could they be better invested
than in a jungle on the sea coast, inhabited by quadrupeds and
bipeds after their various kinds, alike unworthy of being
consulted as to their future destiny? … In April, Martaban
and Rangoon were taken with trifling loss. Operations being
suspended during the rainy season, the city of Prome was not
attacked till October, and after a few hours' struggle it
fell, with the loss of a single sepoy on the side of the
victors. There was in fact no serious danger to encounter,
save from the climate; but that unfailing ally fought with
terrible effect upon the side of Ava. … On the 20th
December, 1852, a proclamation was issued, which, after
reciting undisguisedly the ineffably inadequate pretext for
the war, informed the inhabitants that the Governor in Council
had resolved that the maritime province of Pegu should
henceforth form a portion of the British territories in the
East, and warning the King of Ava, 'should he fail to renew
his former relations of friendship with the British
Government, and seek to dispute its quiet possession of the
province, the Governor-General would again put forth the power
he held, which would lead to the total subversion of the
Burman State, and to the ruin and exile of the King and his
race.' But no depth of humiliation could bring the Sovereign
or his Ministers to acknowledge the hopelessness of defeat or
the permanency of dismemberment. … Twenty years have passed,
and no treaty recognising the alienation of Pegu has yet [in
1872] been signed."
W. M. Torrens,
Empire in Asia: How we came by it,
chapter 24.
ALSO IN:
E. Arnold,
The Marquis of Dalhousie's Administration of British India,
chapters 15-16 (volume 2).
INDIA: A. D. 1856.
The annexation of Oudh.
See OUDH.
INDIA: A. D. 1857.
Causes of the Sepoy Mutiny.
"The various motives assigned for the Mutiny appear inadequate
to the European mind. The truth seems to be that Native
opinion throughout India was in a ferment, predisposing men to
believe the wildest stories, and to rush into action in a
paroxysm of terror. Panic acts on an Oriental population like
drink upon a European mob. The annexation policy of Lord
Dalhousie, although dictated by the most enlightened
considerations, was distasteful to the Native mind. The spread
of education, the appearance at the same moment of the
steam-engine and the telegraph wire, seemed to reveal a deep
plan for substituting an English for an Indian civilisation.
The Bengal sepoys especially thought that they could see
further than the rest of their countrymen. Most of them were
Hindus of high caste; many of them were recruited from Oudh.
They regarded our reforms on Western lines as attacks on their
own nationality, and they knew at first hand what annexation
meant. They believed it was by their prowess that the Punjab
had been conquered, and that all India was held. The numerous
dethroned princes, or their heirs and widows, were the first
to learn and to take advantage of this spirit of disaffection
and panic. They had heard of the Crimean war, and were told
that Russia was the perpetual enemy of England. Our munificent
pensions had supplied the funds with which they could buy the
aid of skilful intriguers. They had much to gain, and little
to lose, by a revolution. In this critical state of affairs,
of which the Government had no official knowledge, a rumour
ran through the cantonments that the cartridges of the Bengal
army had been greased with the fat of pigs,—animals unclean
alike to Hindu and Muhammadan. No assurances could quiet the
minds of the sepoys. Fires occurred nightly in the Native
lines; officers were insulted by their men; confidence was
gone, and only the form of discipline remained. In addition,
the outbreak of the storm found the Native regiments denuded
of many of their best officers. The administration of the
great empire to which Dalhousie put the corner-stone, required
a larger staff than the civil service could supply. The
practice of selecting able military men for civil posts, which
had long existed, received a sudden and vast development.
Oudh, the Punjab, the Central Provinces, British Burma, were
administered to a large extent by picked officers from the
Company's regiments. Good and skilful commanders remained; but
the Native army had nevertheless been drained of many of its
brightest intellects and firmest wills at the very crisis of
its fate."
W. W. Hunter,
Brief History of the Indian People,
chapter 15.
"The annexation of Oudh had nothing to do with the Mutiny in
the first place, though that measure certainly did add to the
number of our enemies after the Mutiny commenced. The old
government of Oudh was extremely obnoxious to the mass of our
native soldiers of the regular army, who came from Oudh and
the adjacent province of Behar, and with whom the Mutiny
originated. These men were the sons and kinsmen of the Hindu
yeomen of the country, all of whom benefited more or less by
annexation; while Oudh was ruled by a Muhammadan family which
had never identified itself with the people, and whose
government was extremely oppressive to all classes except its
immediate creatures and followers. But when the introduction
of the greased cartridges had excited the Native Army to
revolt, when the mutineers saw nothing before them short of
escape on the one hand or destruction on the other, they, and
all who sympathised with them, were driven to the most
desperate measures. All who could be influenced by love or
fear rallied round them. All who had little or nothing to lose
joined their ranks. All that dangerous class of religious
fanatics and devotees who abound in India, all the political
intriguers, who in peaceful times can do no mischief, swelled
the numbers of the enemy, and gave spirit and direction to
their measures. India is full of races of men, who, from time
immemorial, have lived by service or by plunder, and who are
ready to join in any disturbance which may promise them
employment. Oudh was full of disbanded soldiers who had not
had time to settle down. Our gaols furnished thousands of
desperate men let loose on society. The cry throughout the
country, as cantonment after cantonment became the scene of
triumphant mutiny was, 'The English rule is at an end. Let us
plunder and enjoy ourselves.' The industrious classes
throughout India were on our side, but for a long time feared
to act.
{1741}
On the one side they saw the few English in the country shot
down or flying for their lives, or at the best standing on the
defensive, sorely pressed; on the other side they saw summary
punishment, in the shape of the plunder and destruction of
their houses, dealt out to those who aided us. But when we
evinced signs of vigour, when we began to assume the offensive
and vindicate our authority, many of these people came forward
and identified themselves with our cause."
Lord Lawrence,
Speech at Glasgow, 1860 (quoted by Sir O. T. Burne,
in "Clyde and Strathnairn," chapter 1).
ALSO IN:
J. W. Kaye,
History of the Sepoy War in India,
book 2 (volume 1).
G. B. Malleson,
The Indian Mutiny of 1857,
chapters 1-5.
INDIA: A. D. 1857 (May).
The outbreak at Meerut.
Seizure of Delhi by the Mutineers.
Massacre of Europeans.
Explosion of the magazine.
"The station of Meerut, some 40 miles north-east of Delhi, was
one of the very few in India where adequate means existed for
quelling an outbreak of native troops. There was a regiment of
English Dragoons, a battalion of the 60th Rifles, and a strong
force of Horse and Foot Artillery, far more than sufficient to
deal with the three native regiments who were also quartered
in the cantonment. The court-martial on … eighty-five men of
the 3rd N. C., who had refused to take their cartridges, had
by this time completed its inquiry. The men were sentenced to
long terms of imprisonment. The sentence was carried out with
impressive solemnity. On a morning [May 9] presently to become
historical—the heavens sombre with rolling clouds—the
brigade assembled to hear their comrades' doom—to see them
stripped of their uniform and secured with felons' manacles.
The scene produced intense emotion. Resistance was impossible.
There were entreaties, tears, imprecations, as the prisoners
were marched away to jail. Discipline had been vindicated by a
terrible example. The next day was Sunday. In the evening, as
the European Riflemen were gathering for Church, a sudden
movement took place in the native quarters. The Cavalry dashed
off to the jail to rescue their imprisoned companions. The two
Infantry regiments, after a moment's wavering, threw in their
lot with the mutineers. Then ensued a scene such as,
unhappily, became too familiar in Upper India within the next
few weeks. Officers were shot, houses fired, Europeans—men,
women, and children, wherever found, were put to the sword. A
crowd of miscreants from the jail, suddenly set free, made a
long night of pillage. Meanwhile, paralysed by the sudden
catastrophe, the English General of the Division and the
Brigadier of the Station forbore to act, refused to let their
subordinates act, and the Sepoys who had fled, a disorganised
mob, in different directions, soon found themselves gathering
on the march for Delhi. In the early morning at Delhi, where
courts and offices had already begun the day's work, a line of
horsemen were descried galloping on the Meerut road. They
found their way into the city, into the presence of the King;
cut down the European officials, and, as they were gradually
reinforced by the arrival of fresh companions, commenced a
general massacre of the Christian population. A brave
telegraph clerk, as the mutineers burst in upon him, had just
time to flash the dreadful tidings to Lahore. Before evening,
the native regiments fired upon their officers and joined the
mutineers. After weary hours of hope for the help from Meerut
which never came, the British officers in command were
compelled to recognise that the only chance of safety lay in
flight. Ere the day closed, every European who had risen that
morning in Delhi, was dead, or awaiting death, or wandering
about the country in the desperate endeavor to reach a place
of safety. A day dark with disaster was, however, illumined by
the first of those heroic acts which will make the siege of
Delhi immortal. The insurgents had their first taste of the
quality of the race whose ascendancy they had elected to
assail. Lieutenant Willoughby, the officer in charge of the
Magazine, and eight gallant companions, resolved, early in the
day, that, if they could not defend their invaluable supply of
ammunition, they would destroy it, though its destruction
would almost certainly involve their own. For hours they
defended their stronghold against an overpowering crowd of
assailants. The train was laid: the sergeant who was to fire
it stood ready: Willoughby took a last look out upon the
Meerut road: the assailants were swarming on the walls. The
word was spoken: a vast column of flame and smoke shot upward.
Two thousand of the assailants were blown into the air [and
five of the defenders perished, while Willoughby and three of
his companions escaped]. The thunder of that explosion
announced to the mutineers that one great object in the
seizure of Delhi had escaped their grasp."
H. S. Cunningham,
Earl Canning,
chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
J. W. Kaye,
History of the Sepoy War in India,
book 4, chapters 1-3 (volume 2).
INDIA: A. D. 1857 (May-August).
The situation at Delhi.
Siege of the English at Cawnpur.
Their surrender and massacre.
The siege of Lucknow.
"A few days of inactivity allowed the flame to blaze up beyond
possibility of immediate extinction. The unchallenged
occupation of the Mughal capital by rebel sepoys and badmashes
was followed by risings and massacres in almost every station
within range of the example; and from Firozpur, Bareilly,
Moradabad, Shahjahanpur, Cawnpur, and numerous other places
came harrowing tales of massacre, suffering, and heroism. When
this terrible news reached army head-quarters, it was received
with a perhaps natural incredulity. Nevertheless, a force was
hastily assembled at Ambala; and with the troops thus
mobilised, General Anson, then Commander-in-Chief, made
preparations to march against the renowned city of the Mughal.
The little force had hardly started, however, when its leader
died of cholera (May 27th). It was not until the 1st of June
that General Barnard, who had succeeded temporarily to the
chief command, advanced in earnest against the now jubilant
rebels. Meanwhile, a small body of troops under Brigadier
Archdale Wilson marched out from Meerut, after a disastrous
delay; and the combined force, amounting to about 3,000
Europeans and one battalion of Gurkhas, fought its way onwards
till it reached the outskirts of the city on the 8th of June,
1857. We may now refer to the three great points,—Delhi,
Cawnpur, and Lucknow, round which the Mutiny was, so to speak,
centred during the earlier period of the revolt; namely, from
May, 1857, till the arrival in India of Sir Colin Campbell in
August of that year.
{1742}
The modern city of Delhi was founded by the Emperor Jahangir
in 1631. Situated on the right bank of a branch of the Jumna
river it was, as it still is, surrounded by a high wall some
seven miles in extent, strengthened by bastions and by a
capacious dry ditch. The British force held the elevated
ground known as the Ridge, which extends two miles along the
northern and western faces of the city—a position taken up
some centuries before by Timur Shah and his Tartar hordes when
advancing to attack old Delhi. At intervals along the Ridge
stood the Flagstaff Tower, the Observatory, a large mansion
called Hindu Rao's house, and other defensible buildings. The
space between the city and the Ridge was thickly planted, for
the most part with trees and shrubs; in the midst of which
might be seen numerous mosques and large houses, and the ruins
of older buildings. It soon became evident that the position
held by the British force on the Ridge was a false one; and
the question arose whether the city might not be taken by a
coup de main, seeing that it was impossible either to invest
it or to attempt a regular siege with any chance of success. A
plan of assault, to be carried out on the 12th of June, was
drawn up by a young Engineer officer and sanctioned. Had this
assault been delivered the city would in all likelihood have
been taken and held. … But owing to a series of accidents,
the plan fell through—a miscarriage the more to be regretted
because the early recapture of the city would in all human
probability have put a stop to further outbreaks. As matters
stood, however, the gallant little force before Delhi could
barely hold its own. It was an army of observation perpetually
harassed by an active enemy. As time went on, therefore, the
question of raising the siege in favour of a movement towards
Agra was more than once seriously discussed, but was
fortunately abandoned. On July 5th, 1857, General Barnard
died, worn out with fatigue and anxiety. He was succeeded in
command by General Archdale Wilson, an officer who, possessing
no special force of character, did little more than secure the
safe defence of the position until the arrival of Brigadier
Nicholson from the Punjab, August 14th, 1857, with a moveable
column of 2,500 men, Europeans and Sikhs. And here we may
leave Delhi, for the moment, deferring till later any further
details of the siege. The city of Cawnpur, situated on the
south bank of the river Ganges, 42 miles south-west of Lucknow
and 270 miles from Delhi, lies about a mile from the river in
a large sandy plain. On the strip of land between the river
and the town, a space broken by ravines, stretched the Civil
Station and cantonments. A more difficult position to hold in
an extremity cannot well be conceived, occupied as it was by
four disaffected Sepoy regiments with but sixty European
artillerymen to overawe them. There was, moreover, an
incompetent commander. Realising after the disasters at Meerut
and Delhi that his native garrison was not to be trusted, Sir
Hugh Wheeler threw up a make-shift entrenchment close to the
Sepoy lines. Commanded on all sides, it was totally unfitted
to stand a siege. But a worse mistake was to follow. Alarmed
as time went on at his growing difficulties, Sir Hugh Wheeler
at length asked the notorious Nana Sahib [see above: A. D.
1848-1856], who lived a few miles off at Bithur, to assist him
with troops to guard the Treasury. For some months previously
this archtraitor's emissaries had been spreading discontent
throughout India, but he himself had taken care to remain on
good terms with his European neighbours. He now saw his
opportunity. Cawnpur, delivered into his hands by the
misplaced confidence of its defenders, was virtually in his
keeping. Of European succour there was no immediate hope. The
place was doomed. The crash came three days before General
Barnard's force reached Delhi. With the exception of a few
devoted natives who remained faithful to their salt, the whole
Sepoy force on the 5th of June rose in revolt, opened the
doors of the jail, robbed the treasury, and made themselves
masters of the magazine. The Nana cast aside all further
pretence of friendship and, joined by the mutinous troops,
laid siege to the entrenchment already mentioned, which with
culpable military ignorance had been thrown up in one of the
worst positions that could have been chosen. The besieging
army numbered some 3,000 men. The besieged could only muster
about 400 English soldiers, more than 70 of which number were
invalids. For twenty-one days the little garrison suffered
untold horrors from starvation, heat, and the onslaughts of
the rebels; until the General in command listened to overtures
for surrender, and the garrison marched out on the 27th of
June, to the number of about 450 souls, provided with a
promise of safeguard from the Nana, who would allow them, as
they thought, to embark in country boats for Allahabad. Tantia
Topi, who afterwards became notorious in Central India,
superintended the embarkation. No sooner, however, were the
Europeans placed in the boats, in apparent safety, than a
battery of guns concealed on the river banks opened fire,
while at the same time a deadly fusillade of musketry was
poured on the luckless refugees. The Nana at length ordered
the massacre to cease. He celebrated what he called his
glorious victory by proclaiming himself Peshwa or Maratha
Sovereign, and by rewarding his troops for their 'splendid
achievements,' while the wretched survivors of his treachery,
numbering about 5 men and 206 women and children, were taken
back to Cawnpur and confined in a small building for further
vengeance and insult. On the 15th of July came the last act of
this tragedy. The Nana, having suffered a crushing defeat at
the hands of Brigadier Havelock's force within a day's march
of Cawnpur, as will presently be recorded, put the whole of
his prisoners to death. The men were brought out and killed in
his presence, while the women and children were hacked to
pieces by Muhammadan butchers and others in their prison.
Their bodies were thrown into what is now known as the
Cawnpur Well.' Lucknow, at the time of the Mutiny, was in
population, in extent, and in the number and importance of its
principal buildings, one of the foremost cities of India. …
The Residency stood on a hill gently sloping towards the
river, and was an imposing edifice of three stories. Near it
were the iron and stone bridges over the river. … At the
outbreak of the Mutiny the Sepoy regiments were stationed in
various localities within the city; while the 32nd Foot, the
only European regiment on the spot, was quartered in a barrack
about a mile or so from the Residency.
{1743}
As was the case elsewhere, so it happened at Lucknow. While
the population and native garrison were seething with
sedition, the British authorities were hampered by ignorance
of popular feeling, by the want of European troops, and by
divided counsels. So, by the end of May, 1857, the rebellion
in Oudh became an accomplished fact, although matters went on
with comparative smoothness in Lucknow itself. At length,
after a serious disaster at Chinhat, the British garrison was
forced to withdraw to the Residency and its adjacent
buildings; and on the 1st of July commenced the famous
investment of this position by the rebel forces. The position
was ill adapted for defence; for the lofty windows of the
Residency itself not only allowed free access to the enemy's
missiles, but its roof was wholly exposed. On the opposite
side of the street, leading from the Bailey Guard Gate, was
the house of the Residency Surgeon, Dr. (now Sir Joseph)
Fayrer. It was a large but not lofty building with a flat roof
which, protected by sand bags, afforded a good cover for our
riflemen, and with a tyekhana, or underground story, that
afforded good shelter for the women and children. But as a
whole, the defences of the Residency were more formidable in
name than in reality, and were greatly weakened by the
proximity of high buildings from which the rebels without
danger to themselves poured an unceasing fire. The siege had
an ominous commencement. On July 4th the much-beloved Sir
Henry Lawrence, the Resident, died of a wound received two
days before from an enemy's shell that had fallen into his
room. Brigadier Inglis succeeded him in command; and for three
months the heroic garrison of about 1,700 souls held their
weak position, amid inconceivable hardships and dangers,
against thousands of the rebels who were constantly reinforced
by fresh levies. It was well said in a general order by Lord
Canning that there could not be found in the annals of war an
achievement more heroic than this defence."
General Sir O. T. Burne,
Clyde and Strathnairn,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
J. W. Kaye,
History of the Sepoy War,
book 9, chapters 1-3 (volume 3).
G. O. Trevelyan,
Cawnpore.
T. R. E. Holmes,
History of the Indian Mutiny,
chapters 8-10.
Lady Inglis,
The Siege of Lucknow.
INDIA: A. D. 1857 (June-September).
The siege, the storming and the capture of Delhi.
Murder of the Moghul princes.
"During the four months that followed the revolt at Delhi on
the 11th of May, all political interest was centred at the
ancient capital of the sovereigns of Hindustan. The public
mind was occasionally distracted by the current of events at
Cawnpore and Lukhnow, as well as at other stations which need
not be particularised; but so long as Delhi remained in the
hands of the rebels, the native princes were bewildered and
alarmed; and its prompt recapture was deemed of vital
importance to the prestige of the British government, and the
re-establishment of British sovereignty in Hindustan. The
Great Moghul had been little better than a mummy for more than
half a century, and Bahadur Shah was a mere tool and puppet in
the hands of rebel sepoys; but nevertheless the British
government had to deal with the astounding fact that the
rebels were fighting under his name and standard, just as
Afghans and Mahrattas had done in the days of Ahmad Shah
Durani and Mahadaji Sindia. To make matters worse, the roads
to Delhi were open from the south and east; and nearly every
outbreak in Hindustan was followed by a stampede of mutineers
to the old capital of the Moghuls. Meanwhile, in the absence
of railways, there were unfortunate delays in bringing up
troops and guns to stamp out the fires of rebellion at the
head centre. The highway from Calcutta to Delhi was blocked up
by mutiny and insurrection; and every European soldier sent up
from Calcutta was stopped for the relief of Benares,
Allahabad, Cawnpore, or Lukhnow. But the possession of the
Punjab at this crisis proved to be the salvation of the
empire. Sir John Lawrence, the Chief Commissioner, was called
upon to perform almost superhuman work:—to maintain order in
a newly conquered province; to suppress mutiny and
disaffection amongst the very sepoy regiments from Bengal who
were supposed to garrison the country; and to send
reinforcements of troops and guns, and supplies of all
descriptions, to the siege of Delhi. Fortunately the Sikhs had
been only a few short years under British administration; they
had not forgotten the miseries that prevailed under the native
government, and could appreciate the many blessings they
enjoyed under British rule. They were staunch to the British
government, and eager to be led against the rebels. In some
cases terrible punishment was meted out to mutinous Bengal
sepoys within the Punjab; but the imperial interests at stake
were sufficient to justify every severity, although all must
regret the painful necessity that called for such extreme
measures. … The defences of Delhi covered an area of three
square miles. The walls consisted of a series of bastions,
about sixteen feet high, connected by long curtains, with
occasional martello towers to aid the flanking fire. … There
were seven gates to the city, namely, Lahore gate, Ajmir gate,
Turkoman gate, Delhi gate, Mori gate, Kabul gate, and Kashmir
gate. The principal street was the Chandni Chouk, which ran in
a direct line from the Delhi gate to the palace of the
Moghuls. … For many weeks the British army on the Ridge was
unable to attempt siege operations. It was, in fact, the
besieged, rather than the besiegers; for, although the bridges
in the rear were blown up, the camp was exposed to continual
assaults from all the other sides. On the 23rd of June, the
hundredth anniversary of the battle of Plassy, the enemy made
a greater effort than ever to carry the British position. The
attack began on the right from the Subzi Mundi, its object
being to capture the Mound battery. Finding it impossible to
carry the battery, the rebels confined themselves to a hand to
hand conflict in the Subzi Mundi. The deadly struggle
continued for many hours; and as the rebels came up in
overwhelming numbers, it was fortunate that the two bridges in
the rear had been blown up the night before, or the assault
might have had a different termination. It was not until after
sunset that the enemy was compelled to retire with the loss of
a thousand men. Similar actions were frequent during the month
of August; but meanwhile reinforcements were coming up, and
the end was drawing nigh. In the middle of August, Brigadier
John Nicholson, one of the most distinguished officers of the
time, came up from the Punjab with a brigade and siege train.
On the 4th of September a heavy train of artillery was brought
in from Ferozepore.
{1744}
The British force on the Ridge now exceeded 8,000 men.
Hitherto the artillery had been too weak to attempt to breach
the City walls; but now fifty-four heavy guns were brought
into position and the siege began in earnest. From the 8th to
the 12th of September four batteries poured in a constant
storm of shot and shell; number one was directed against the
Kashmir bastion, number two against the right flank of the
Kashmir bastion, number three against the Water bastion, and
number four against the Kashmir and Water gates and bastions.
On the 13th of September the breaches were declared to be
practicable, and the following morning was fixed for the final
assault upon the doomed city. At three o'clock in the morning
of the 14th September, three assaulting columns were formed in
the trenches, whilst a fourth was kept in reserve. The first
column was led by Brigadier Nicholson; the second by Brigadier
Jones; the third by Colonel Campbell; and the fourth, or
reserve, by Brigadier Longfield. The powder bags were laid at
the Kashmir gate by Lieutenants Home and Salkeld. The
explosion followed, and the third column rushed in, and pushed
towards the Juma Musjid. Meanwhile the first column under
Nicholson escaladed the breaches near the Kashmir gate, and
pushed along the ramparts towards the Kabul gate, carrying the
several bastions in the way. Here it was met by the second
column under Brigadier Jones, who had escaladed the breach at
the Water bastion. The advancing columns were met by a
ceaseless fire from terraced houses, mosques, and other
buildings; and John Nicholson, the hero of the day, whilst
attempting to storm a narrow street near the Kabul gate, was
struck down by a shot and mortally wounded."
J. T. Wheeler,
Short History of India,
part 3, chapter 25.
"The long autumn day was over, and we were in Delhi. But Delhi
was, by no means, ours. Sixty-six officers and 1,100 men—
nearly a third, that is, of the whole attacking force—had
fallen; while, as yet, not a sixth part of the town was in our
power. How many men, it might well be asked, would be left to
us by the time that we had conquered the remainder? We held
the line of ramparts which we had attacked and the portions of
the city immediately adjoining, but nothing more. The Lahore
Gate and the Magazine, the Jumma Musjid and the Palace, were
still untouched, and were keeping up a heavy fire on our
position. Worse than this, a large number of our troops had
fallen victims to the temptation which, more formidable than
themselves, our foes had left behind them, and were wallowing
in a state of bestial intoxication. The enemy, meanwhile, had
been able to maintain their position outside the town; and if
only, at this supreme hour, a heaven-sent General had appeared
amongst them, they might have attacked our camp, defended as
it was mainly by the sick, and the maimed, and the halt. …
Never, perhaps, in the history of the Mutiny were we in quite
so perilous a position as on the night which followed our
greatest military success. General Wilson, indeed, proposed,
as might have been expected from a man in his enfeebled
condition of mind and body, to withdraw the guns, to fall back
on the camp and wait for reinforcements there; a step which,
it is needless to point out, would have given us all the
deadly work to do over again, even if our force should prove
able to maintain itself on the Ridge till reinforcements came.
But the urgent remonstrances of Baird Smith and others, by
word of mouth; of Chamberlain, by letter; and, perhaps, also,
the echoes which may have reached him from the tempest-tossed
hero who lay chafing against his cruel destiny on his
death-bed, and exclaimed in a wild paroxysm of passion, when
he heard of the move which was in contemplation, 'Thank God, I
have strength enough left to shoot that man,' turned the
General once more from his purpose. On the following day, the
15th, vast quantities of the intoxicating drinks, which had
wrought such havoc amongst our men, were destroyed by General
Wilson's order, and the streets literally ran with rivers of
beer, and wine, and brandy. Meanwhile, the troops were
sleeping off their drunken debauch; and on the 16th active
operations were resumed. On that day the Magazine was taken,
and its vast stores of shot and shell, and of all the
'material' of war, fell once more into the hands of their
proper owners. By sapping gradually from house to house we
managed, for three days more, to avoid the street-fighting
which, once and again, has proved so demoralising to
Englishmen; and, slowly but surely, we pressed back the
defenders into that ever-narrowing part of the city of which,
fortunately for themselves, they still held the bolt-holes.
Many of them had already begun, like rats, to quit the sinking
vessel. And now the unarmed population of the city flocked in
one continuous stream out of the open gates, hoping to save
their lives, if nothing else, from our avenging swords. On the
19th, the palace of the Moguls, which had witnessed the last
expiring flicker of life in an effete dynasty, and the cruel
murder of English men, and women, and children, fell into our
hands; and by Sunday, the 20th, the whole of the city—in
large part already a city of the dead—was at our mercy. But
what of the King himself and the Princes of the royal house?
They had slunk off to the tomb of Humayoun, a huge building,
almost a city in itself, some miles from the modern Delhi, and
there, swayed this way and that, now by the bolder spirits of
his army who pressed him to put himself at their head and
fight it out to the death, as became the descendant of
Tamerlane and Baber, now by the entreaties of his young wife,
who was anxious chiefly for her own safety and that of her
son, the heir of the Moguls; and now, again, by the plausible
suggestions of a double-dyed traitor of his own house who was
in Hodson's pay, and who, approaching the head of his family
with a kiss of peace, was endeavoring to detain him where he
was till he could hand him over to his employer and receive
the price of blood, the poor old monarch dozed or fooled away
the few hours of his sovereignty which remained, the hours
which might still make or mar him, in paroxysms of imbecile
vacillation and despair. The traitor gained the day, and
Hodson, who could play the game of force as well as of fraud,
and was an equal adept at either, learning from his
craven-hearted tool that the King was prepared to surrender on
the promise of his life, went to Wilson and obtained leave, on
that condition, to bring him into Delhi. The errand, with such
a promise tacked on to it, was only half to Hodson's taste.
{1745}
'If I get into the Palace,' he had written in cool blood some
days before, 'the house of Timour will not be worth five
minutes' purchase, I ween.' … After two hours of bargaining
for his own life and that of his queen and favourite son, the
poor old Priam tottered forth and was taken back, in a
bullock-cart, a prisoner, to his own city and Palace, and was
there handed over to the civil authorities. But there were
other members of the royal family, as Hodson knew well from
his informants, also lurking in Humayoun's tomb. … With a
hundred of his famous horse Hodson started for Humayoun's
tomb, and, after three hours of negotiation, the three
princes, two of them the sons, the other the grandson of the
King, surrendered unconditionally into his hands. … Their
arms were taken from them, and, escorted by some of his
horsemen, they too were despatched in bullock-carts towards
Delhi. With the rest of his horse, Hodson stayed behind to
disarm the large and nerveless crowd, who, as sheep having no
shepherd, and unable, in their paralysed condition, to see
what the brute weight even of a flock of sheep might do by a
sudden rush, were overawed by his resolute bearing. This done,
he galloped after his prey and caught them up just before the
cavalcade reached the walls of Delhi. He ordered the princes
roughly to get out of the cart and strip,—for, even in his
thirst for their blood, he had, as it would seem, an eye to
the value of their outer clothes,—he ordered them into the
cart again, he seized a carbine from one of his troopers, and
then and there, with his own hand, shot them down deliberately
one after the other. It was a stupid, cold-blooded, three-fold
murder. … Had they been put upon their trial, disclosures of
great importance as to the origin of the Mutiny could hardly
fail to have been elicited. Their punishment would have been
proportioned to their offence, and would have been meted out
to them with all the patient majesty of offended law."
R. B. Smith,
Life of Lord Lawrence,
volume 2, chapter 5.
ALSO IN:
Sir R. Temple,
Lord Lawrence,
chapter 7.
Sir R. Temple,
Men and Events of my Time in India,
chapter 7.
J. Cave-Brown,
The Punjab and Delhi in 1857.
G. B. Malleson,
History of the Indian Mutiny,
book 10, chapter 1 (volume 2).
Major Hodson,
Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India,
part 2: The Delhi Campaign.
INDIA: A. D. 1857-1858 (July-June).
General Havelock's campaign.
Sir Colin Campbell's.
The Relief of Lucknow.
Substantial suppression of the Mutiny.
"Meanwhile the greatest anxiety prevailed with regard to our
countrymen and countrywomen at Lucknow and Cawnpore. The
Indian government made every effort to relieve them; but the
reinforcements which had been despatched from England and
China came in slowly, and the demands made for assistance far
exceeded the means at the disposal of the government. … The
task of relieving the city was entrusted to the heroic General
Havelock, who marched out with a mere handful of men, of whom
only 1,400 were British soldiers, to encounter a large army
and a whole country in rebellion. At Futtehpore, on the 12th
of July, he defeated a vastly superior force, posted in a very
strong position. After giving his men a day's rest, he
advanced again on the 14th, and routed the enemy in two
pitched battles. Next morning he renewed his advance, and with
a force of less than 900 men attacked 5,000 strongly
entrenched, and commanded by Nana Sahib. They were
outmanœuvred, out-flanked, beaten and dispersed. But for this
signal defeat they wreaked their vengeance on the unfortunate
women and children who still remained at Cawnpore. On the very
day on which the battle occurred, they were massacred under
circumstances of cruelty over which we must throw a veil. The
well of Cawnpore, in which their hacked and mutilated bodies
were flung, presented a spectacle from which soldiers who had
regarded unmoved the carnage of numerous battle-fields shrank
with horror. Of all the atrocities perpetrated during this
war, so fruitful in horrors, this was the most awful; and it
was followed by a terrible retribution. It steeled the hearts,
and lent a furious and fearless energy to the arms, of the
British soldiery. Wherever they came, they gave no quarter to
the mutineers; a few men often frantically attacked hundreds,
frantically but vainly defending themselves; and never ceased
till all had been bayoneted, or shot, or hewn in pieces. All
those who could be shown to have been accomplices in the
perpetration of the murders that had been committed were hung,
or blown from the cannon's mouth. Though the intrepid Havelock
was unable to save the women and children who had been
imprisoned in Cawnpore, he pressed forward to Lucknow. But the
force under his command was too small to enable him to drive
off the enemy. Meanwhile Sir J. Outram, who was now returning
from the Persian war, which had been brought to a successful
conclusion, was sent to Oude as chief commissioner, with full
civil and military power. This appointment was fully deserved;
but it had the effect, probably not thought of by those who
made it, of superseding Havelock just as he was about to
achieve the crowning success of his rapid and glorious career.
Outram, however, with a generosity which did him more real
honour than a thousand victories would have conferred, wrote
to Havelock to inform him that he intended to join him with
adequate reinforcements; adding: 'To you shall be left the
glory of relieving Lucknow, for which you have already
struggled so much. I shall accompany you only in my civil
capacity as commissioner, placing my military service at your
disposal, should you please, and serving under you as a
volunteer.' Thus Havelock, after gaining no fewer than twelve
battles against forces far superior in numbers to the little
band he originally led, was enabled at length, on the 25th of
August, to preserve the civilians, the women, and children of
Lucknow from the impending horrors of another massacre, which
would no doubt have been as fearful as that of Cawnpore. The
Highlanders were the first to enter, and were welcomed with
grateful enthusiasm by those whom they had saved from a fate
worse than death. However, the enemy, recovering from the
panic which the arrival of Havelock and his troops had caused,
renewed the siege. Sir Colin Campbell, who had assumed the
command of the Indian army, had determined to march to the
relief of Lucknow. He set out from Cawnpore on the 9th of
November, but was obliged to wait till the 14th for
reinforcements, which were on the way to join him, and which
raised the force under his command to 5,000—a force
numerically far inferior to that which it was to attack.
{1746}
On the 17th of November the relief of Lucknow was effected.
The music of the Highland regiments, playing 'The Campbells
are coming,' announced to their delighted countrymen inside
the city that the commander-in-chief himself was with the
relieving force. Little time, however, was allowed for
congratulations and rejoicings. The ladies, the civilians, and
the garrison were quietly withdrawn; the guns, which it was
thought not desirable to remove, were burst; and a retreat
effected, without affording the enemy the slightest suspicion
of what was going on until some hours after the town had been
evacuated by its defenders. The retreating force reached
Dilhasha on the 24th, without having sustained any serious
molestation. There the gallant Havelock sank under the trials
and hardships to which he had been exposed, and yielded up the
life which was instrumental in preserving so many others from
the most terrible of deaths. While Sir Colin Campbell was
engaged in effecting the relief of Lucknow, intelligence
reached Cawnpore that a large hostile army was making towards
it. General Windham, who commanded there, unacquainted with
the number or the position of the approaching force, marched
forth to meet it, in the hope that he should be able to rout
and cut up the advanced guard before the main body of the
enemy could come to its assistance. But in this expectation he
was disappointed. Instead of having to deal with the van, he
engaged with the whole rebel army, and his little force,
assailed on all sides, was obliged to retire. He at once
despatched a letter to the commander-in-chief, requesting him
to hasten to his assistance; but it was intercepted by the
enemy. Fortunately Sir Colin Campbell, though ignorant of the
critical position of his subordinate, came up just at the
moment when the danger was at its height. This was on the 28th
of November. He was, however, in no haste to attack the foe,
and was content for the present merely to hold them in check.
His first care was for the safety of the civilians, the women,
and the children, which was not secured till the 30th; and he
continued to protect them till the 5th of December, when they
were all safely lodged at Allahabad. The enemy, unaware of the
motive of his seeming inaction, imputed it to fear, and became
every day more confident and audacious. On the 6th he at
length turned fiercely on them, completely defeated them, and
seized their baggage; he then dispersed and drove away another
large force, under the command of Nana Sahib, which was
watching the engagement at a little distance. The army entered
the residence of Nana Sahib at Bithoor, and took possession of
much treasure, which had been concealed in a well. Nearly the
whole of the enemy's artillery was captured; and the army,
being overtaken as they were in the act of crossing into Oude,
great numbers of them were destroyed. Of course, for the
moment Lucknow, being no longer garrisoned, had fallen into
the hands of the insurgents; but they were not long permitted
to retain it. Strong reinforcements arrived, and the Indian
government was enabled to send a force against Lucknow
sufficient to overwhelm all resistance; and on the 15th of
December this important city was in the undisputed possession
of the British troops. This final recovery of the capital of
Oude decided the reconquest of that country. A struggle was,
indeed, maintained for some time longer; innumerable battles
were fought; and the final subjugation of the country was
effected in the month of June, 1858."
W. N. Molesworth,
History of England, 1830-1874,
volume 3, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
A. Forbes,
Havelock,
chapters 5-7.
General Sir O. T. Burne,
Clyde and Strathnairn.
General Shadwell,
Life of Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde,
volume 1, chapter 11,
and volume 2, chapters 1-18.
T. Lowe,
Central India during 1857-8.
INDIA: A. D. 1858.
The Governor-General's Proclamation,
Termination of the rule of the East India Company.
The government transferred to the Crown.
"By a singular circumstance, when the mutiny was suppressed in
1858, the Governor-General, who in the previous year had been
condemned for leniency which was thought ill-timed, was
destined to receive censure for harshness which was declared
unnecessary. On the eve of the fall of Lucknow, he drew up a
proclamation confiscating the lands of all the great
landowners in Oudh. Exceptions were, indeed, made to this
sweeping decree. Landowners who could prove their loyalty were
promised exemption from it, just as rebels who unconditionally
surrendered, and whose hands were not stained with British
blood, were offered pardon. There is no doubt that Canning, in
drawing up this proclamation, relied on the exceptions which
it contained, while there is equally no doubt that the critics
who objected to it overlooked its parentheses. But its issue
was made the basis of an attack which well-nigh proved fatal
to the Governor-General's administration. The chances of party
warfare had replaced Palmerston with Derby; and the
Conservative minister had entrusted the Board of Control to
the brilliant but erratic statesman who, fifteen years before,
had astonished India with pageant and proclamation. …
Ellenborough thought proper to condemn Canning's proclamation
in a severe despatch, and to allow his censure to be made
public. For a short time it seemed impossible that the
Governor-General who had received such a despatch could
continue his government. But the lapse of a few days showed
that the minister who had framed the despatch, and not the
Viceroy who had received it, was to suffer from the
transaction. The public, recollecting the justice of Canning's
rule, the mercy of his administration, almost unanimously
considered that he should not have been hastily condemned for
a document which, it was gradually evident, had only been
imperfectly understood; and Ellenborough, to save his
colleagues, volunteered to play the part of Jonah, and retired
from the ministry. His retirement closes, in one sense, the
history of the Indian Mutiny. But the transactions of the
Mutiny had, almost for the first time, taught the public to
consider the anomalies of Indian government. In the course of
a hundred years a Company had been suffered to acquire an
empire nearly ten times as large and as populous as Great
Britain. It was true that the rule of the Company was in many
respects nominal. The President of the Board of Control was
the true head of the Indian Government, and spoke and acted
through the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors. But
this very circumstance only accentuated the anomaly. If the
President of the Board of Control was in fact Indian minister,
it was far simpler to make him Indian minister by name, and to
do away with the clumsy expedient which alone enabled him to
exercise his authority.
{1747}
Hence it was generally decided that the rule of the Company
should cease, and that India should thenceforward become one
of the possessions of the crown. … A great danger thus led
to the removal of a great anomaly, and the vast Indian empire
which Englishmen had won was thenceforward taken into a
nation's keeping."
S. Walpole,
History of England from 1815,
chapter 27 (volume 5).
The act "for the better government of India," which was passed
in the autumn of 1858, "provided that all the territories
previously under the government of the East India Company were
to be vested in her Majesty, and all the Company's powers to
be exercised in her name. One of her Majesty's principal
Secretaries of State was to have all the power previously
exercised by the Company, or by the Board of Control. The
Secretary was to be assisted by a Council of India, to consist
of fifteen members, of whom seven were to be elected by the
Court of Directors from their own body, and eight nominated by
the Crown. The vacancies among the nominated were to be filled
up by the Crown; those among the elected by the remaining
members of the Council for a certain time, but afterward by
the Secretary of State for India. The competitive principle
for the Civil Service was extended in its application, and
made thoroughly practical. The military and naval forces of
the Company were to be deemed the forces of her Majesty. A
clause was introduced declaring that, except for the purpose
of preventing or repelling actual invasion of India, the
Indian revenues should not, without the consent of both Houses
of Parliament, be applicable to defray the expenses of any
military operation carried on beyond the external frontiers of
her Majesty's Indian possessions. Another clause enacted that
whenever an order was sent to India directing the commencement
of hostilities by her Majesty's forces there, the fact should
be communicated to Parliament within three months, if
Parliament were then sitting, or, if not, within one month
after its next meeting. These clauses were heard of more than
once in later days. The Viceroy and Governor-General was to be
supreme in India, but was to be assisted by a Council. India
now has nine provinces, each under its own civil government,
and independent of the others, but all subordinate to the
authority of the Viceroy. In accordance with this Act the
government of the Company, the famed 'John Company,' formally
ceased on September 1st, 1858; and the Queen was proclaimed
throughout India in the following November, with Lord Canning
for her first Viceroy."
J. McCarthy,
History of Our Own Times,
chapter 36 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
Sir H. S. Cunningham,
Earl Canning,
chapters 7-9.
Duke of Argyll,
India Under Dalhousie and Canning.
INDIA: A. D. 1861.
Institution of the Order of the Star of India.
See STAR OF INDIA.
INDIA: A. D. 1862-1876.
Vice-regal administrations of
Lords Lawrence, Mayo and Northbrook.
Lord Canning was succeeded as Viceroy by Lord Elgin, in 1862;
but Elgin only lived until November, 1863, and his successor
was Sir John Lawrence, the savior of the Punjab. "Sir John
Lawrence's Viceroyalty was an uneventful time. Great natural
calamities by famine and cyclone fell upon the country, which
called forth the philanthropic energies of Government and
people. Commerce passed through an unexampled crisis, taxing
skill and foresight. But the political atmosphere was calm.
With the exception of little frontier wars, wasteful of
resources that were sorely needed, there was nothing to divert
the Government from the prosecution of schemes for the
improvement of the physical and moral condition of the
people." Sir John Lawrence held the Viceroyalty until January,
1869, when he was succeeded by Lord Mayo and returned to
England. He was raised, in that year, to the peerage, under
the title of Baron Lawrence of Punjab and Grateley. He died
ten years later.
Sir C. Aitchison,
Lord Lawrence,
chapters 7-12.
Lord Lawrence's immediate successor, Lord Mayo, was
assassinated, while Viceroy, in 1872, by a convict—a
Highlander—at the convict settlement on the Andaman Islands,
for no reason of personal hatred, but only because he
represented the governing authority which had condemned the
man. Lord Mayo was succeeded by Lord Northbrook, who held the
office from 1872 to 1876.
Sir W. W. Hunter,
The Earl of Mayo.
INDIA: A. D. 1876.
Lord Lytton, Viceroy.
The successor of Lord Northbrook in the Vice-regal
office was Lord Lytton, appointed in 1876.
INDIA: A. D. 1877.
The Native States and their quasi feudatory relation to the
British Crown.
Queen Victoria's assumption of the title of Empress of India.
"In some sense the Indians were accustomed to consider the
Company, as they now consider the Queen, to be the heir of the
Great Mughal, and therefore universal suzerain by right of
succession. But it is easy to exaggerate the force of this
claim, which is itself a mere restatement of the fact of
conquest. Politically, India is divided into two parts,
commonly known as British territory and the native states. The
first portion alone is ruled directly by English officials,
and its inhabitants alone are subjects of the Queen. The
native states are sometimes called feudatory—a convenient
term to express their vague relation to the British crown. To
define that relation precisely would be impossible. It has
arisen at different times and by different methods; it varies
from semi-independence to complete subjection. Some chiefs are
the representatives of those whom we found on our first
arrival in the country; others owe their existence to our
creation. Some are parties to treaties entered into as between
equal powers; others have consented to receive patents from
their suzerain recording their limited rights; with others,
again, there are no written engagements at all. Some have
fought with us and come out of the struggle without dishonour.
Some pay tribute; others pay none. Their extent and power vary
as greatly as their political status. The Nizam of Haidarabad